Heads are nodding, eyebrows are raised and fingers are pointed at Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, for an implicit part in data harvesting by Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica is partly owned by the family of Robert Mercer, billionaire, and hedge fund manager.  Also, the harvesting of data occurred two years ago according to the more famous whistle blower, Christopher Wylie.   Where is the data now, where is it being stored and how many profiles were harvested?  These questions are not pressing as to when Mark Zuckerberg learned of harvested data by Cambridge Analytica.  Data mining is synonymous with data harvesting, which is the term defined on Investopedia’s website, to describe how raw data is reformatted to develop compelling marketing strategies to increase sale of a product or decrease cost.  Giant (multinational) corporations use surveys of various types to harvest data and participants-in return- gain and receive something for their time.  Harvesting of data is done daily in implicit and explicit forms.  How many times have you completed a McDonald’s survey for a buy one, get one free sandwich? And, psychological surveys are used by many employers during the pre-screening process. What’s your personality type: Extrovert, Introvert, Sensing, Intuition, Thinking, Feeling, Judging and Perceiving?  Why is Facebook’s CEO under examination? George Orwell said it best, “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”  Christopher Wylie who previously worked with Cambridge University Academic announces, “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of profiles.”  How was the data harvested? According to Cadwaller and Graham-Harrison, the data was harvested by Aleksandr Kogan’s app called thisisyourdigitallife. The application was neatly packaged as a personality test and users agreed to share their information for academic purpose. This is only the topical application of the breach. Referencing Lockheed Martin’s Cyber Kill Chain Model, the method of weaponization was social engineering, netting millions of profiles rather than millions of dollars.  The interactions between the two giants, Cambridge Analytica and Mark Zuckerberg, are under investigation by the US and UK authorities.    Facebook’s VP of AR/VR, Andrew Bosworth, shares on Twitter, “This is ‘unequivocally not’ a data breach.”

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